MPLS 2020 REVIEW: WHAT THE BLEEP JUST HAPPENED? (Part 3)
This is part 3 of a 3-part document, put together by MPLS City to review their 2020. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here.
WHAT WE DID WITH OUR TIME OFF
“If you vote for me, it will be summer all year round.” – Napoleon Dynamite
Two years ago, Members had voted to approve the club moving forward with plans for a U19 team. This addition would allow us to completely bridge the gap between youth club soccer and college and professional soccer that exists in Minnesota. We had to do it carefully though. We had to ensure that local youth clubs saw us as a partner in player development and not as a competitor. The cancelled season gave us time to work hard on finalizing the plan for this program.
While that was in progress, Derek Chauvin kneeled on George Floyd’s neck and we had to focus on our community.
We’re just a soccer club, so we’re unable to take on big structural and social issues. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something. From helping to clean up South Minneapolis to a weekly food and home supply donation drive and neighborhood pick-up, the volunteers, players, and fans of the club did what they could to live our mission of community action[21].
Technically, the terms of the lease at our shop did not allow the food donation and pantry that we were doing and after just over a month our landlord politely asked that we stop. We did and turned our focus back toward what became the Futures Program.
Our dream is to win a national title using only Minnesota-based players.
Therefore, it is in our interest to ensure that the top Minnesota-based players are the best they can be. Which is good news if you’re a top Minnesota-based player. Our interests are aligned.
One of the advantages that other countries have in player development is the clarity of progression through youth to adult soccer. That becomes especially clear when working with American players at ages 18 to 20. The only clear next step is college soccer, but that serves so few players that the knock-on effect is to dampen interest in play for older teens who view themselves as having reached the end of the road. There is a huge drop in participation at those ages and youth clubs have a difficult time filling out teams at U19, let alone ensuring a vibrant and competitive environment.
That’s where the Futures Program comes in.
Since the club was founded, we have been been dedicated to providing opportunities for Minnesota soccer players and to help bridge the gap between youth soccer and college, pro, and professionally-amateur soccer. To build this bridge, the Futures Program attempts to help solve the following 4 problems:
Structure: Opportunities for players nearing age 18-to-20 often fall apart or do not exist outside of college soccer and many players lose interest at this age 18-to-20 because there is not another level of competitive soccer beyond U18/U19 to aspire.
Expense: The cost of elite-level youth soccer can exceed $4,000/year. This cost can exclude talented Minnesota players who do not have the financial means to participate, essentially shutting them out of “the system”.
Time & Travel: Elite teams typically involve extensive travel. Minnesota’s young players often spend more time traveling than playing on the field. The 20 and under age group also have jobs and social commitments that start to make such travel prohibitive or undesirable.
Roadmap: An immediate jump to USSF Division 1 (MLS) or professional soccer abroad is often unattainable. A large number of Minnesota youth players still lack awareness of Minneapolis City and the competitive play opportunities (USL, NPSL, UPSL) that may exist for them beyond high school, club, and college.
Members approved launching the program and we got it started this November.
Futures is such a good model that Minnesota United, who we spoke with about this program, have picked it up as the replacement for their Development Academy team. It’s validating to have that happen[22]. Other clubs around the country have spoken to us about the model and I expect to see more clubs roll out this or something very similar in the coming year. I hope it works for everyone![23]
One day, when we have our own stadium, it’s full every week, and our latest Matthew Wolff-designed kit is worn by everyone from Minneapolis to Manchester to Mindanao, we will be able to fully fund the Futures Program from club revenues. Until then, it will cost money. However, we have worked extremely hard to keep the costs low (especially for what you get) because we want it to be accessible.
Not only does Futures provide great value for competitive, on-field time, but players get all of their training gear, match gear, an athletic trainer, and opportunities to play with and against the senior teams for free.
More than that, we set-up the Futures Scholarship Fund. Member donations, sales of specific merchandise items, and a feature on our online store where people can ‘round up’ their purchase to the nearest whole number have given us over $4,500 to use on scholarships for players who cannot afford the program.
Our supporters gave us a gift by keeping the club not only afloat but in rude health during this pandemic. Hopefully, we’ve been able to do things in and for our community to thank them for their gift.
CHANGE IS GOOD
“The only constant is change.” – Literally everyone famous, if you believe Google
From the beginning, we have been an all-volunteer group. All of us. Even the coaches.
The club has asked a lot of everyone. I would estimate, though nobody leak this to their employers, that we have at least 10 people who volunteer with the club and give it 20 hours per week (or more!) pretty much all year. Nobody gets any money from this. Most, in fact, are volunteering and also donating money and necessary items. Even the coaches.
It’s one thing for someone like me to do that. I don’t make less money because I spend evenings and weekends on this quirky-and-totally-awesome volunteer project, but the coaches do. There are only so many hours during the day that are ‘coachable hours’ and we take lots of those up. That means that they’re not just volunteering when they coach City, they’re giving up income to coach City. It’s incredible commitment.
Our growth means that we don’t have to ask that of them anymore. In 2021, with the approval of our Members via a vote, we are going to begin to pay our coaches stipends.
It’s a little less catchy to be an all-volunteer-except-for-coaches-who-get-a-small-stipend club but it feels really good to get there. We’re growing up and our 2021 budget reflects it.
The timing of this is good, too. We’re expanding our coaching staff across the board and the stipend helps make it work for these talented, dedicated people. Also, I’m proud to say, we are bringing in two women to join the coaching staff. Alli Lipsher joins as Director of Goalkeeping. Tori Burnett joins as an assistant coach.
Both Alli and Tori have top tier playing and coaching credentials and will help make our players and team better. We are lucky to have coaches of their caliber in the club. They will make our team better. We’re also lucky that they’re willing to kick down some doors. They will be the only women coaches in the North Conference and, I think though don’t quote me on it, the entire NPSL.
They join Sarah Schreier, who is in our front office, and Board members Becky Rothmeier, Sarah Waterworth, and Rachel Slivken as vital members of a club that is much, much more than goofy dudes with a Twitter account. Also, I should mention that the stipends are the same for the women and the men because it’s about damn time for equality, isn’t it?
IF ONLY PROGRESSION WAS POSSIBLE
“Everything is possible, even the impossible.” – Mary Poppins
A group of friends talking together in a bar founded Minneapolis City SC. We’re not the only one. Giants of the game like Aston Villa[24] and Chelsea were founded by small groups talking and planning together in bars, too. Where could we be in 100 years, we asked?
The answer, sadly, is somewhere between “in the same spot” and “in whatever similar spot exists after 95 years of league flux, failure, infighting, and intrigue” because there are two giant limiters placed on American soccer clubs: the United States Soccer Federation and the National Collegiate Athletics Association.
In a different country, this year we would start offering our players a stipend. It wouldn’t be a lot, but a per-game stipend would be possible—except USSF only lets you operate a club where you pay players if, among other things, at least 35% of your club is owned by someone with $10 million+ of net worth[25]. While some people on Twitter are certain that I possess extraordinary wealth, I can assure them that, much to my dismay, I do not. Even if USSF relaxed the rules, the NCAA is there to ensure that college players don’t play on the same team as guys who are getting paid. That means that if we want any college players involved, and we do because our mission is to help elevate local talent, then we can’t pay anyone at all.
Our progression could be linear and include player payments that increase as we go. It’s just that it’s not allowed.
A number of our major expenses are, once we reach a certain level, fixed. For example, as our revenue has grown over the years we have added hours for training time. Eventually, though, we don’t need to train anymore. That cost becomes set and doesn’t vary relative to our revenue.
That means that, once we satisfy the basics, we have budget available to take on new expenses like stipends for coaches–and, if it were allowed, for players.
In the chart above, I assume a basic 25% increase in revenue from 2021 to 2023. So, in 2021 we can afford to spend 11% of revenue on stipends/salaries. In 2022 that moves to 15%. By 2023, that’s 22% and we have a budget of over $55,000[27] for this line item.
Imagine that, as well as regulatory reform,[26] we had a functioning pyramid in this country. A crazy pro/rel wand type of thought, I know, but bear with me for a second.
What if we could grow from our regional summer amateur league into a truly semi-pro extended season league? For sake of example, consider going from a May-July league to a May-October league. We could afford that and would benefit from the extra games, especially if they were against higher profile clubs. That alone, and the revenue that comes from it, would supercharge our growth cycle, allowing us to put even more into the club, and into the people who make the club go: coaches, players, staff. Maybe we hire a full-time general manager. Now we’re getting sustainable!
Assume, for the sake this hypothetical, that we remain successful at the higher level. Our growth continues and we are able to win promotion to the next level up: a fully professional league equivalent to the USSF Division 3 level. Travel is more expensive, but depending on the geography, perhaps offset by the gate from bigger clubs coming to town and the sponsorship boost from being in a professional league. Maybe we stay up, maybe we can’t quite afford to compete and go down, but a progression like that, linear, organic, and possible does not exist in American soccer today.
So instead of a plausible path to professional we are faced with a giant, artificial financial cliff to scale to get to professional.
Like this, but made of net worth requirements and insurance fine print.
We would not go out of business if we were promoted organically to a professional league and then relegated out of it. We would go out of business if we sold to an investor, spent, I dunno, $3 million in a season, and the investor either lost interest or lost money.
The power of a functioning pyramid is that it allows clubs to find their level. Right now, much of what is driving the Soccer Warz league fights at the “Tier Four” level is clubs trying desperately to find a league that gives them competitive, well run, geographically close, opponents. It’s who you play that really matters—they’re the results in the table, they’re the draw for fans, they’re the ones you have to work with behind the scenes, they’re the logos that appear on your schedule.
Right now, the leagues rope together a bunch of clubs at different operational levels and with different visions because they’re desperate for scale. This doesn’t really help the clubs because the mismatch creates friction. Would you like being stuck in a conference with a club that operates on 10X or more of your budget and wins all the time? It’s no better to be the club operating on 1/10th the budget and losing all the time.
It’s hard enough to work positively through the challenges of lower division soccer without also layering on the major mismatches, but soccer in America works the way it works.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE MIGHTY CROWS
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” – Steve Jobs
The upcoming season will be our sixth and, though that qualifies as middle aged in the lower division soccer world, we’re as energetic as a frisky teenager on prom night.
Beginning a new launch sequence
The vision for City is filling the gap between youth club and collegiate/professional soccer with a sustainable, people-powered, community club. With the Futures Program launched, we have the pieces in place to realize that vision for our players. We did it ourselves, all of us, by building slowly, surely, bit-by-bit and dollar-by-dollar to create something that can serve and elevate local players from high school on.
It was harder work, more expensive, and took longer than we thought, but we have the model built out. We have the concept proven on the men’s side.
We believe that we can serve local women and girls with the same model.
From the very beginning of Minneapolis City SC, a women’s team was in our plans–and we talked about it every year in our Annual Member Meeting. It was just a matter of getting the foundation in place so we could execute it, not as an afterthought, but as a core element of the club. Completely equal, and completely awesome.
This year, Members voted to have the club pursue building out a women’s program.
With the sustainable base we have built, we believe now is the time to develop our vision–and put it into action–for how Minneapolis City can serve local women and girls through soccer. We know that it won’t be exactly the same as what we have done before. The women’s game, in terms of infrastructure, club involvement, and other foundational elements, is too different from the men’s game (here in Minnesota, at least) for us to take a cookie cutter approach. As always, we want to be additive to what already exists–and different.
Building a ‘professional ready’ club
That vision will continue to drive us on the men’s side and as a club overall.
Tier Four, where we are now, is a decent but imperfect fit for realizing that vision. Could it be a better fit a level up? We talk regularly about aspiring to be the soccer version of the St. Paul Saints and, as soccer evolves, that could mean we are most comfortable at professional level. Having seen clubs from the NPSL like Detroit City make the leap it’s easy to dream.
It’s impossible to know the future, though, especially in American soccer. Therefore, our ambition is to get to ‘professional ready’ while remaining laser-focused on being the club we set out to be. Both are possible. Getting to ‘professional ready’ is about growth, operational excellence, and being a really fun experience for people who like soccer enough to check us out. We would do that anyway! So it’s more about stating it as our ambition than changing anything.
Did we impress at the investor meeting?
We have been approached by professional leagues and we have been approached by investors. We’ve had great conversations with both. We want to keep the club moving forward, and we will, but we’re going to do it our way. We’re going to do it on our time. We’re going to do it with our people, and community and mission.
It’s all we know how to do.[28]
[21] Special thanks to Matt vanBenschoten for leading the clean-up efforts and to Sarah Schreier for leading the food pantry.
[22] It’s also validating that competitors are talking shit about it to influencers in the Twin Cities soccer scene. You know you’re arrived at something when your haters feel like they have to trash your initiatives.
[23] Not least because we’ll be able to claim some credit for the inevitable United States World Cup victory powered by a bunch of players who came up through Futures Program-like models.
[24] I haven’t validated this one on the internet, but a friend from the Midlands told me it was true and now it’s on the internet so if we just re-wrote Aston Villa’s history at least we did it together.
[25] And you can’t pay players in a USASA-sanctioned amateur leagues because of insurance issues, as the NPSL Pro (hell yeah, brother) group found out.
[26] I know lol right but this is a hypothetical and in this hypothetical USSF and the NCAA don’t stand in the way of people making a living in sport.
[27] All else being equal, of course, which assumes that we don’t encounter circumstances where we also need to buy more training hours, take a more expensive mode of transportation to away games, etc and so on.
[28] Fact check: false. Adam makes the ultimate enchiladas, Sarah is a Super Mario World savant, Jon won at least one bags tournament in Wisconsin, Matt is a legit marriage therapist, and Dan uses an above average number of footnotes.
Just a quick editor’s note. Fans of grassroots soccer are lucky to be around during this MPLS City club’s era. I absolutely love Dan and the entire staff of the Crows, absolute professionals. I deal with a lot of clubs, most could learn a lot from MPLS City. Massive thanks to Dan and MPLS City for allowing us to run this amazing document again this year. Hope we get the call again next year.
- Dan Vaughn